


Disregard the Hypotheticals

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [158]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Affection, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Love, Memories, Reader-Insert, Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27340798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: Things started off rocky, with a green sweater and a giant misunderstanding. But Loki finds it hard to regret your beginnings, since they’ve led you both here.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [158]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 10
Kudos: 145





	Disregard the Hypotheticals

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops, this is yet another callback of sorts, except it’s not for an earlier Lullaby. A few years ago, I wrote a smutty fic that started out with Loki misunderstanding the deeper meaning of a gorgeous green sweater that you wore, and of course things spiraled from there. You DO NOT need to read that smutty fic in order to understand this one, and, in fact, if you’re a minor, I don’t want you to read it at all. But if you’re of age and you remember the sweater story, this is meant to be the same characters. If you’re of age and you’ve got some extra time tonight and a desire to read the fic that inspired this one, it’s here: [All in Green](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18675838).

It started with a sweater. Cozy and over-sized, it covered a large portion of your body, shielding you from the crisp autumn air and from any hungry eyes that happened to land on you. Like his. He’d seen it for the first time at one of the movie nights in the Tower and, even when the lights were turned out, he couldn’t look away.

Because it was not just any sweater. It was green.

Looking back at that first night still made his cheeks burn, still made his ears ring with embarrassment. He’d cornered you in the kitchen and pawed at you with absolutely no sense of decorum. But you looked so good in green. His mind had him convinced that you were wearing the sweater on purpose. After all, he’d already caught you looking at him with something like hunger in your eyes. So he got entirely too close to you and twisted some of your hair around his finger and spoke to you in a low voice. He’d seen the way your pupils dilated. He’d heard how your breath caught in your throat. It all seemed so promising. But then you had laughed nervously and chirped out your realization that his cape was green—and, therefore, the revelation that you were _not_ wearing green to entice him.

Horrifying.

He’d felt physically ill as he tore himself away from you. He seemed to remember begging your forgiveness as he fled. Begging _you_ for forgiveness. A mortal. A Midgardian. A girl with warmth in her eyes. He avoided you for a long time, not entirely willing to look at you and have to see the awkward discomfort that would surely cloud your expression. That lasted until Stark threw himself a birthday party and he spotted you there, clad once again in brilliant green.

And...well. The rest was history.

Now he awoke beside you in bed more often than not. He got to fall asleep with you in his arms. He got to touch you. Taste you. And he got to see you—with clothes and without—whenever he wanted. It didn’t quite seem fair, most of the time, but if life had taught him anything, it was the importance of embracing such odd little gifts before they could be taken away. So he held you tight and relished the sacred warmth of your body and did his best to memorize the way you smelled.

One night, you donned that sweater again. The seasons were changing, after all, and the air was cooling. When you first met up with him, there was a question in your eyes. Loki’s first instinct was to recoil, but he reached out to take your hand instead.

“Is this okay?” Your voice was so small. “I really do love this sweater. Especially now that...” And then you’d trailed off. The softness in your face made something strange surge in his chest. It allowed him to look at you and see not the shock and bewilderment with which you’d watched him flee that first night, but the hunger and desperation with which you’d clung to him on the night of the party. So he smiled at you and swept you into his arms and stole away your uncertainty with a kiss. You twined your arms up around his neck and pressed yourself closer to him. When you parted your lips for him, he claimed you fiercely.

When he made himself break the kiss to allow you to breathe, he pulled back a bit and took in the sight of you. It was a rather nice sweater, all things considered. It was just a little too large for you, and drooped down your shoulders and over your hands. It made you look small. Delicate. Perhaps even in need of protection? Norns, he wanted to crush you against him and never let you go. Instead, he pushed one of your sleeves up just high enough so he could kiss your knuckles.

“If I hadn’t made that mistake, who knows where we’d be at this very moment.” He didn’t often allow himself to ponder hypotheticals, but right now that particular “what-if” seemed so close at hand. It would have been entirely too easy for all of this _not_ to have happened. Just thinking about that—about not being permitted to hold you like this now that he’d gotten a taste of it—made him uneasy. Almost unconsciously, he tightened his arms around you. Your body was solid against him, and warm, and steadying. He ducked down to press a kiss to the top of your head and then drew in the scent of your hair.

“Who knows,” you agreed quietly. He imagined he could hear just the slightest hint of dread in your voice. He told himself that he should feel at least a little guilty at that, at making you worry, but all he could really feel was relief. If you were also uncomfortable with the notion of not being here with him, perhaps this was more likely to last. When you tightened your arms around his waist, he couldn’t keep the smile from stealing across his face.

Later that night, you curled into him on the sofa. As usual, you were warm and soft. A blanket was tucked around your legs and, of course, you were still wrapped in your sweater. He really did quite like your warmth. Being cold had never really bothered him. There were worse ways to be uncomfortable, after all, and Loki had spent a great deal of time learning to keep his back straight and his chin held high no matter how uncomfortable he was. With you, though, things were different. You weren’t overt about it, but he’d come to notice the way you seemed to keep an eye out for any signs of his discomfort. You did things for him to make him more comfortable, and you rarely even asked him about it. 

For a long time, he didn’t really notice it. You were so casual about it that he could only assume that it was part of your nature. When a conversation with the Avengers slipped a little too far into jokes about having wanted him dead that didn’t truly feel entirely like jokes, you interrupted things fearlessly and changed the subject. When anger began to build within him—nearly always a direct result of a conversation with his oafish brother—you would put your hand into his and found a way to let all of the whirling chaos bleed out of him. When you began to sleep beside him at night, no matter how heavy your eyelids were or how many yawns you had to stifle, you always remembered to reach out and tuck the blankets more securely around him. When a headache began to brew, you somehow always knew to work your nimble fingers through his hair to ease some of the tension. You kissed his forehead, the tip of his nose. You touched him in ways that no one else ever had.

This evening, as the last rays of sunlight began to fade, leaving the room a little too dark, he must have been squinting at his book, because you got to your knees without a word and leaned past him to turn on the lamp on the side table.

It struck him, then, how absolutely vital you had become to his baseline happiness, and he let go of his book in favor of wrapping his arms around you before you could go back to how you’d been sitting before. You squeaked with alarm, a sound which made him chuckle to himself even as he tugged you into position sitting astride his lap. You didn’t fight him. Oh, you could put up a hell of a fight when you wanted to, and it was always a pleasure when you did, but tonight he took his pleasure in the way you went so soft in his arms. Your trust was a heady drug indeed. 

Those brilliant green sleeves covered your hands as you pressed them against his chest—less to push him away than to support yourself as you leaned into him. Your eyes were absolutely sparkling, and it was hard to be sure whether it was the lamplight or something more than that. When you flashed him a smile, it actually made his breath catch in his throat. This was all too good to be true, but there you were, gazing down at him with love shining in your face. You leaned in a little closer to press your forehead against his.

“You’re going to hurt your eyes if you keep trying to read in the dark, you know.” There was a trace of laughter in your words, as though you didn’t fully believe what you were saying. 

“My lady was resting comfortably at my side. I couldn’t bear to disturb her.” He lifted his chin a little to pretend to sneer down at you, but he knew you wouldn’t be fooled. Sure enough, you rolled your eyes and moved to kiss the tip of his nose. But he was faster: he shifted so that you were pressing your lips against his. You huffed indignantly, a quick puff of air through your nose, and he swallowed down his laughter even as he parted your lips to taste you. 

The kiss was slow, languid. Your tongues moved together as though neither of you had any plans beyond kissing. For a long time, Loki knew that he’d been an impatient lover, never quite cruel but also never quite caring. He’d never left a partner wanting, of course, but his primary focus had always been on his own pleasure. As with so many other things, being with you had changed that. He treasured the sweet sounds you made when he kissed you like this, those quiet moans, almost whimpers. When you let him taste you, it was like he could lose himself in you entirely, just close his eyes and drift there in the way you felt. He pressed a hand against the back of your neck to keep you close, not that you seemed at all willing to move away.

Sometimes he imagined what it would have been like to kiss you like this that night in the kitchen. Experience had taught him that you would not have been likely to pull away. When he’d kissed you on the dance floor, after all, you had melted into him much the way you did now. You were so sweet. So open. Sometimes it made him wonder if he could ever be worthy of you.

As if on cue, you pulled away then, and caught his gaze. Something familiar sparked somewhere behind your eyes. “Will you take me to bed, my king?”

And, worthy or not, who was he to refuse?


End file.
